


The Believer

by folerdetdufoler



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Evakteket SKAMenger Hunt, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 15:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17103182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folerdetdufoler/pseuds/folerdetdufoler
Summary: the "pagan celebrations" prompt





	The Believer

Even asked him the question before, when they were much younger. Isak had answered it then. He stood by his answer, so he didn’t understand why the question was bothering him again. It wasn’t like Even had just asked it, or anyone else for that matter. But now they were sitting at the dinner table with his mother and her head was bowed over her empty plate and Isak was watching her whisper a prayer. When Isak looked across the table at Even and met his gaze, the question reappeared:

“Do you believe in God?”

He was briefly transported back to the bed they shared, the late night when Even had first asked.

“No.”

He was brought back to the dinner table when Lea asked him to pass the pork. He scowled at her and picked up the platter to serve their mother first. Even offered Lea the potatoes in consolation.

Marianne was so happy to have all of her children at the table. When she raised her head after her prayer she was beaming. “Thank you, Isak.” She waited while he continued to dish out servings, filling her plate with a little bit of everything she’d been cooking over the past couple of days.

“Thank you for cooking, Mamma. It all looks so good.”

Lea cleared her throat.

“Thank you, too, Lea,” Isak muttered. Lea had been at their mother’s house for a whole week now, helping her prepare to host, and she’d taken every opportunity to remind Isak of her contributions where his were lacking.

“Thank you, Lea.” Even chimed in with genuine appreciation. She rewarded him with a smile.

They relaxed and ate after a long day on their feet. The food was delicious and Isak was truly grateful for all the work his mother and sister had put into preparing it, but he was also too stubborn to let Lea feel smug about it. He gave her the cold shoulder for most of the meal, keeping his attention on Marianne as she listed everything she loved about the Christmas service at church.

“Oh and Even, I can’t believe I manage to forget this every year, but your voice is so lovely. I almost stopped singing myself just to listen to you next to me.”

Even smiled as he finished chewing, then humbly accepted the compliment. He reached over and gave Marianne’s hand a squeeze, and they exchanged a knowing look. Sometimes Isak wondered if Marianne loved Even more than her own son, but he shot it down with the understanding that it was just a different kind of love, perhaps a little easier. Isak was all too familiar with how easy it was to love Even, so he could not blame Marianne for that.

“Will you go caroling when you’re back home?”

“No…I don’t think we have many groups that do that around our place.”

“We would probably need a kid to go around with.” Their apartment building didn’t have many families with young kids, so in general the area wasn’t as festive. Visiting Marianne and her collection of gnomes made up for it though.

“Then you should have a child!” Marianne concluded as if it were the obvious solution. Even laughed.

“Yes Isak, let’s have a kid so I can _finally_ go caroling.” They shared a smile, and Even’s eyes sparkled with the joke that wasn’t quite a joke. They’d been talking about adoption. Even signed them up for the mandatory course, and it would start in the new year.

“Oh you tease, but Isak loved doing it when he was little. Lea too.”

“I know, you showed me the videos a few years ago.” Even’s eyes still sparkled at the memory.

“Oh heavens. I keep forgetting things. My mind must be starting to go.”

“It’s okay. We can watch them again. Make a new holiday tradition.”

Isak pointed his fork at Even. “No.”

“For once, I agree with Isak.” It was already a tradition to bring up something divisive at the dinner table, but now that Even was firmly part of the family he would side with Marianne to even the score. Their kindness would put up a decent fight but ultimately back off when the Valtersen siblings joined forces. With their allegiances chosen for the evening, they settled into a comfortable draw, passing the food around the table with a shared goal.

After dinner Isak had enough energy to bring in an armful of wood for the stove, but that was it. He tossed a couple of split logs onto the low-burning heap and crawled across the floor to the base of the couch. Marianne and Lea were at each end, their feet overlapping in the middle under a shared blanket. Even was in the armchair at their side. Isak centered himself, wrapping his hand loosely around Even’s ankle and leaning against the arm of the sofa. Marianne could reach down and comb her fingers through Isak’s hair like she used to when he was a child and listening to her read a bedtime story. The room glowed a bit brighter as the fire caught the new logs.

“Where did your parents go this year, Even?”

“New Zealand.”

Isak felt his mother shift in surprise. “So far!”

“Yeah, it’s a longer trip, but they wanted to go somewhere warm.”

“They keep calling it their summer vacation,” Isak added wryly.

“That’s cute.”

Without looking up Isak could tell Even was pulling out his phone to show Marianne and Lea the photo that Jan had sent him two days ago: his parents in their swimsuits on the beach, wearing santa hats. It earned a hearty laugh from Marianne.

“Did they always go away for Christmas?”

“They started when we moved away for school, since I wasn’t going to be home much.”

“What an exciting way to end the year,” Marianne admired.

“Yes, but this is much more our speed.”

Lea lifted her glass of wine to Even in silent agreement. They kept up a casual, drifting conversation while they watched the fire, no one in any particular rush to open gifts. They would, eventually, before it got too late, but it was a subdued affair. As adults they had traded out their energetic excitement for well-earned gratitude, peeling open perfectly chosen gifts and sharing warm, long hugs in response.

Marianne retired first, with Lea following shortly after. Isak and Even kissed in the new privacy of the living room, but then agreed that they were due for bed too. Isak banked the fire and Even collected everyone’s glasses.

They moved silently toward Isak’s bedroom, beginning their routines automatically. Neither spoke until Even had returned from the bathroom and began stripping, layer by layer. “We could go away if you want.”

“What?” Isak was too distracted by how Even was undressing to register what he was talking about.

“If you don’t want to celebrate Christmas, we can do what my parents do and travel instead.”

“They still celebrate Christmas though.”

“Yeah, but it’s less about church and stuff. It’s a hat on a beach.”

Even had put on his pajamas so Isak could focus again on what he was actually saying. He sighed. “I’m not…I don’t have a problem with church.”

“You looked annoyed when I was talking to Marianne about it. And you definitely fell asleep during the service.”

“No, it was something else. I just remembered a question you had asked me once, and it was bothering me. Unrelated to the conversation.” Isak tried to brush it all off. He didn’t want to get into it right then, even though it was still bothering him from the back of his mind. Now that Even was done and climbing into his skinny bed, Isak took his turn to pull his pajamas from the suitcase and get changed. They were both quiet while Isak dealt with his clothes and Even waited for him to continue.

He didn’t. He shut off the light and squeezed into the bed, tightening their usual pose due to the lack of room. Isak choreographed it with small grunts, drawing Even’s arms around his torso and parting his legs with his own knees. Once he was settled, Even tried to restart the conversation. “We could visit Stonehenge and celebrate the solstice instead.”

“Even…what the fuck.” Isak mumbled into his chest.

“Noah told me about it. He recently learned about Yule, and then Odin, and the solstice. He said it was like Christmas but cooler because it came first.”

“Oh, how is Noah?” Noah was one of Isak’s favorite students of Even’s, and he had a habit of sharing one new piece of information with Even every time he saw him. Sometimes it was what kind of food he ate for lunch, but most of the time it was whatever he’d discovered the night before, scrolling through his iPad after his parents went to bed.

“He’s good. He’s working on a slideshow to convert his parents. He said some of the stuff is the same, so it shouldn’t be too hard. A lot of food, gifts, a tree.”

They slipped into silence again. The warmth of the bed and alcohol of the long day was helping Isak drift off to sleep, but he could also tell Even wasn’t relaxing, his breathing wasn’t dropping. Isak pressed a slow pattern into Even’s chest to draw him down with him.

“I just mean we don’t have to make it a religious thing, if it bothers you. We’ll just eat food and celebrate the sun or whatever.”

Isak sighed. “I feel like we’ve had this conversation before. I think this is why you asked me that question a while ago.”

“What question?”

“Do you believe in God?”

Even answered for him. “No.”

“Right. That’s what I was thinking about during dinner.”

“But I know that. That’s why I thought we should do something different, since the religious stuff is so unappealing.”

Isak pushed on Even’s chest so he could sit up. He regretted leaving the embrace he had so carefully constructed but he needed to talk to Even’s face. Their usual late-night conversation that could be floated up into the darkness between them wasn’t going to work this time. “Yule…the solstice…that’s religious stuff as well. I’d probably fall asleep at Stonehenge too. But that’s not it.” He was looking down at Even but he didn’t want to actually talk down to him. He shifted to the end of the bed and crossed his legs. This gave Even space to sit up at the head and match his level. “It doesn’t matter if it’s God or Odin or the sun. It’s the believing that still bothers me. It’s hard watching Mamma resort to that…blind faith of hers. It’s not that I don’t believe in God, it’s that I don’t believe at all. Seeing her depend so heavily on something so fake is frustrating, and it makes me want to like…send her back to school. Or even just go outside! Point to something and explain how and why it exists. I don’t understand what some book, or these rituals have to do with the way this world functions and develops. I don’t like that she trusts something else more than her own mind or the knowledge that we...that we _know_.”

Even nodded. He understood. He tried to joke to ease the tension that had bubbled up with Isak’s explanation and kept his shoulders hunched over. “So we won’t go to Stonehenge.”

Isak crooked a small smile. “We can go to Stonehenge.”

He wasn’t sure if he was done. He wasn’t sure if he’d just opened a can of worms, if he had more to get off his chest, or if that was enough to just relieve the pressure for a bit. He looked down at the blanket twisted around his lap. It was an old quilt that his grandmother had pieced together from scraps. It was a chaos of color and patterns, messy enough to not offend his teenage self. It was a comfort and a distraction now, as he tried to settle his mind for sleep.

But then: “Sometimes that’s all we have,” Even whispered. Isak’s head snapped up in search of Even’s face, his meaning. 

“Stonehenge?”

“Faith.” Even’s eyes were downcast as he admitted his perceived weakness, joining Mamma’s ranks.

Isak was shocked. He hadn’t meant to condemn his husband along with his mother, to criticize how he saw the world or what he depended on. But now, with a whisper, that particular softness that tended to undermine any other authority in the room, Even showed him that he had.

“Isak, there’s just so much we don’t know. We have to believe to make up for it, to feel whole in this world. Sometimes we have to trust in something else just to get through the day.”

“I…I don’t mean you, that. I meant thinking that a sun is more than a star that converts energy, or that things happen in our lives because there’s a dude up in the sky who decided they should. Your life is yours. You have that power. Mamma has that power. When someone believes in God it just sounds like they handed their life over to something else. It sounds like they gave up.”

The look Even gave him then made him realize he’d just made things a lot worse. Instead of healing a wound he’d thrown another knife, and it had pierced an unprotected spot in Even’s armor.

“Fuck. No, Even….” Isak launched himself forward into Even’s lap, trying to chase him even though he physically wasn’t moving. He could feel him emotionally retreating though. He scooped up Even’s jaw in his hands. “I don’t want to talk anymore because I feel like it’s just going to get worse."

Even didn’t deny that. He stared at Isak, searching for his rebuttal. He had to speak Isak’s language, that of a non-believer. He needed the proof, the evidence, by which Isak lived his life.

“Your mother looks at you and thanks God every day for you because she thinks it’s a miracle that she was able to create and raise and love someone so wonderful. She believes so she doesn’t doubt herself any more than she already does. She has strength, and power, because she believes. It’s how she can account for herself, and for you. She prays for you.”

Isak didn't want to talk about God, or gods, or praying. He tried to go back to his original point. “But you have that power whether you believe or not.”

“No, Isak. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you just have doubt and fear.”

Isak’s hands slipped down from Even’s face and rested on his shoulders. “I don’t…I don’t know what to say to convince you that—“

“That I’m wrong? That I don’t know what I’m talking about? That I am not personally acquainted with those doubts and fears, or that I don’t have to draw confidence from something beyond myself?” Even took his chance to return Isak’s strikes and delivered them with precision. 

Isak’s hands fell to his lap. They sat there in silence with their wounds.

They let time do its job, healing what it could. Then Even tried to close the remaining distance physically, unable to stand being separated from Isak like that, by their own words. He took Isak’s waist in a firm grip and pulled him in close. They had to rearrange their legs, but then they were chest-to-chest, forehead-to-forehead.

Even sighed. He wasn’t going to apologize, or wait for Isak to either. They had both spoken a truth. So instead he whispered a soft demand, one Isak could meet. “Just give me this.” His breathing dropped. “Just give me something to believe in.”

He had said all he needed to say. He slid down, moving toward sleep, and he drew Isak down with him.


End file.
